Mechanism for securing recorded contents of recording medium cassette

Abstract

A recorded data securing mechanism secures data recorded on a recording medium cassette provided with a memory and a data recording enable/disable tab at a predetermined position on the cassette. Breaking the recording enable/disable tab provided on the memory-based recording medium cassette prevents data recorded on the cassette from being written over and ensures that there will be no mismatch between the recording information stored in the memory of the cassette and the data recorded on the recording medium of the cassette. In one embodiment, rewriting is enabled but a memory mismatch flag is set if rewriting results in a mismatch.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. Apparatus for securing data recorded on a recording medium housed in a cassette wherein said cassette is provided with data recording enable/disable means for enabling and disabling recording on said recording medium and may or may not be provided with a memory for storing information about data recorded on said recording medium, said apparatus comprising: recording means;   state detecting means for producing a state detection signal representing the state of said enable/disable means;   memory detecting means for producing a memory detection signal representing a presence or an absence of a memory in said cassette; and   microcomputer means for disabling recording by said recording means in response to a memory detection signal indicating the presence of a memory in said cassette;   disabling of recording by said recording means in response to a memory detection signal indicating the absence of a memory in said cassette and a state detection signal indicating that said enable/disable means is in a disable state; and   enabling recording by said recording means in response to a memory detection signal indicating the absence of a memory in said cassette and a state detection signal indicating that said enable/disable means is in an enable state.   
     
     
       2. A method of securing data recorded on a recording medium housed in a cassette wherein a memory flag having an enable/disable state is provided and said cassette is provided with data recording enable/disable means for enabling and disabling recording on said recording medium and may or may not be provided with a memory for storing information about data recorded on said recording medium, said method comprising the steps of: detecting a presence or an absence of a memory;   detecting the state of said enable/disable means;   disabling recording on said recording medium in response to detecting the absence of a memory and a disable state of said enable/disable means;   disabling recording on said recording medium in response to detecting the presence of a memory and a disable state of said enable/disable means;   disabling recording on said recording medium in response to detecting the presence of a memory, an enable state of said enable/disable means, and a disable state of said memory flag;   enabling recording on said recording medium in response to detecting the absence of a memory and an enable state of said enable/disable means; and   enabling recording on said recording medium in response to detecting the presence of a memory, an enable state of said enable/disable means, and an enable state of said memory flag.